Something was wrong in Lowndes County, Alabama. Sewage was backing up into people’s yards, and the county was threatening to arrest residents who lacked a proper septic system. But buying and installing a new septic system was cost prohibitive for many residents of this rural county, where the systems are prone to failure because of the soil’s high clay content.

Environmental activist Catherine Coleman Flowers brought senators, activists, media and other public figures to her home county to show them the conditions people lived in. She wanted to bring awareness and funding to people who couldn’t “pull themselves up by their bootstraps” because they didn’t have any boots to begin with, she writes in Waste: One Woman’s Fight Against America’s Dirty Secret. Flowers pressured the state to stop criminalizing poverty, and as awareness grew, she was able to coordinate new septic systems and sometimes even new homes for people in need.

In Waste, Flowers recounts a lifetime of advocacy that has culminated in the battle for one Alabama county. Flowers was raised by Civil Rights activists, with others in and out of her home, and so advocacy has been a theme throughout her life. And though Lowndes County is at the heart of her work, Flowers writes about similar conditions across the United States.

Known as “the Erin Brockovich of sewage,” Flowers shares many insights into America’s need for environmental justice. “I believe we will find solutions if we can direct the energies of academics, business, government, and philanthropy toward finding them," she writes, "and that’s where public policy comes in: to make this issue a priority, set standards for how we will live in the United States, and provide incentives for innovative solutions.”

Her direct, easy-to-follow prose offers a plain look at the challenges that face many people in poverty and the value of activism. The lessons she takes from seeking wastewater solutions may inspire advocates nationwide. 

Ijeoma Oluo, author of the bestselling book So You Want to Talk About Race, offers a historical and sociological view of the toxic white male identity in her new book, Mediocre: The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America. Oluo persuasively argues that American society is structured to preserve the power (and tastes) of white men and outlines how we got here.

Our now-ingrained power structure wasn't inevitable but was purposely designed to center white men. Looking back at centuries of American history, Oluo shows how white male entitlement took hold from the early beginnings of this country—from slavery to westward expansion to the genocide and displacement of Indigenous Americans; from cowboy mythology glamorizing the violence of “Buffalo Bill” Cody to the modern-day obsession with spoiled but dangerous white men like Ammon Bundy.

Americans are taught that the United States is a meritocracy and that anyone who tries to get ahead will be rewarded with opportunities. However, the evidence doesn’t bear this out. With example after example—the male feminists of the early 20th century, NFL owners, presidential candidates and even their supporters—Oluo deftly shows how the society that white men built now rewards mediocre white men, regardless of their skills or talent, while punishing women and people of color for anything less than perfection. Unfortunately, when ordinary white men do not receive the unmitigated success they feel is their right, they turn their disappointments and anger on these women and people of color instead of on the elite white men who hoard opportunities and power for themselves. Because of this, disaffected white men are now the biggest domestic terror threat in the United States.

Oluo expertly shows how inequality, toxic masculinity and an unequal power structure deeply hurt all Americans, including white men. Through careful research and scholarship, she breaks down the system that sustains the status quo while shedding light on the ways others can also dismantle this system to ensure a more equitable future for all. It’s an essential read during times of political upheaval and unsure futures.

It is my sincere hope that millennials will read Can’t Even: How Millennials Became the Burnout Generation, Anne Helen Petersen’s new book about the professional zeitgeist—that is, if they’re not too burned out to do so.

In nine well-researched chapters, Can’t Even feistily fleshes out Petersen’s viral 2019 BuzzFeed article about millennial burnout. Interviews with a diverse array of millennials and deep analyses of labor history, class and sociology illustrate just how bad life has gotten for many members of this age group. What was called “workaholism” in the 1980s is called “hustle” in the 2020s—and if you can’t hack it, that’s on you. The result for too many Americans is insurmountable student debt, an erosion of job security, the rise of the gig economy, the fetishization of freelance work, a lack of leisure time and a trend toward “competitive martyrdom” in parenting.

Woven throughout Can’t Even is a sharp critique of boomer parents and employers. White, middle-class boomers in particular inculcated high expectations for the future in their children while tearing down the safety net beneath them. Petersen drives home the point that our current problems are not personal but societal—and yet, when a millennial cannot afford health insurance or a down payment on a house, it’s judged as laziness. No wonder so many people experience life as constant busyness and feel guilt for relaxing. “Burnout . . . is more than just an addiction to work,” she writes. “It’s an alienation from the self, and from desire. If you subtract your ability to work, who are you?”

However, readers don’t need to be personally burnt out for Can’t Even to resonate. If social media or the gig economy touch your life in any way, there’s something to chew on here. Fortunately, Petersen doesn’t offer any “hacks” or “tips” to pare back our busy lives. Instead, she advocates for societal self-reflection and an assessment of our values to spur change: Do we really want to live this way?

Drilling down into the second-largest school district in the country to shine an intimate light on a few senior boys in two very different high schools would have been a daunting task in less capable hands. In Show Them You’re Good: A Portrait of Boys in the City of Angels the Year Before College, Jeff Hobbs does it so well that these soon-to-be men may be forever cast in the amber of their adolescence: slightly familiar from the start and, finally, utterly unforgettable. 

Ánimo Pat Brown (APB), one of six Green Dot charter schools created to remedy “poor and falling graduation statistics” in the Los Angeles Unified School District, is known for its high graduation and college matriculation rates. For its students, many from immigrant families struggling to gain footholds in this country, APB is the rare path to opportunity.

Beverly Hills High School (BHHS) is rated in the top 10% of California schools, holding forth in a city that was founded as a whites-only covenant. Famous alumni include Betty White and Guns N’ Roses’ Slash. Its swim gym, where the floor opens to reveal a swimming pool, made a memorable appearance in the classic movie It’s a Wonderful Life. 

From these two schools, “separated by much more than the twenty-two miles of city pavement between them,” come the stories of Carlos, Tio, Luis and Byron at APB, and Owen, Sam, Harrison, Bennett and Jonah at BHHS. These young men have different backgrounds and aspirations, but they’re all enveloped in the fog of the American higher education application process. 

Following them through their senior year, Hobbs is allowed an unflinching look at the supporting players in their lives, from Sam’s strict mom and Tio’s troubled father to Carlos’ brother at Yale and Owen’s bedridden mother. Harrison is obsessed with finding a Division I school where he can play football, despite the BHHS team’s perennial losing streak. Byron tells his Cornell interviewer that his goal is to be Iron Man. 

How they each arrived at this pivotal point in their lives may not predict what happens next, but it is our privilege, thanks to Hobbs, to follow them. Readers will come to care deeply about these students’ journeys.